The present invention relates generally to computer-implemented engineering design systems. More particularly, the invention relates to computer-implemented networked engineering design systems.
Previous approaches to engineering modeling have been localized, non-proprietary and limited in the information available from the model. Whenever two engineering models were to be merged in order to provide greater analytical capability, typically one model's proprietary data and methods could be examined by the other model.
This exemplary disadvantage is particularly problematic when the models are from two different companies both striving to preserve the confidentiality of their respective proprietary modeling data and methods. Another exemplary disadvantage is that merging of the two models from two different developers so that the two models can communicate is difficult since the two models probably utilize two different input and output formats. This exemplary disadvantage grows even more problematic as the number of models to be merged increases.